CHAPTER XIII.

THAT THE MOST SACRED VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD DIED OF LOVE FOR HER SON.

One can hardly well doubt that the great S. Joseph died before
the passion and death of our Saviour, who otherwise would not
have commended his mother to S. John. And how can one
then imagine that the dear child of his heart, his beloved foster-child,
did not assist him at the hour of his departure? Blessed
are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Ah! how much
sweetness, charity and mercy, did this good foster-father use
towards our Saviour, when he was born a little child in the
world! And who can then believe but that, at his departure
out of it, this divine child rendered him the like a hundred-fold,
filling him with heavenly delights? Storks are the true representation
of the mutual piety of children towards their parents
and of parents towards their children: for, being birds of passage,
they bear their old parents with them in their journey, as
their parents had borne them while they were yet young, on the
like occasions. While our Saviour was yet a little child, the
great S. Joseph his foster-father, and the most glorious Virgin
his mother, had many times carried him, but especially in their
journey from Judea to Egypt, and from Egypt to Judea. Ah!
who then can doubt that this holy father being come to the end
of his days, was reciprocally carried by his divine foster-child,
in the passage from this to another life, into Abraham's bosom,
to be translated thence into his own, into glory, on the day of
his Ascension? A saint who had loved so much in his life,
could not die but of love; for his heart not being able to love
his dear Jesus as much as he desired while he continued amongst
the distractions of this life, and having already performed the
duty which was required in the childhood of Jesus, what remained
319but that he should say to the eternal Father: O Father,
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do:354354John xvii. 4.
and then to the Son, O my child! as thy heavenly Father put thy tender
body into my hands the day of thy coming into this world, so
do I render up my soul into thine, this day of my departure out of the world.

Such, as I conceive, was the death of this great patriarch, a
man elected to perform the most tender and loving offices that
ever were or shall be performed to the Son of God, save those
that were done by his sacred spouse, the true natural mother of
the said Son. Now of her it is not possible to imagine that she
died of any other kind of death than of love, the noblest of
deaths, and consequently due to the noblest life that ever was
amongst creatures: a death of which the very angels would
desire to die, if die they could. If the primitive Christians
were said to have but one heart and one soul, by reason of their
perfect mutual love, if S. Paul lived not in himself, but Jesus
Christ lived in him, by reason of the close union of his heart to
his Master's, whereby his soul was as it were dead in his heart
which it animated, to live in the heart of the Saviour which it
loved,—O true God! how much more really had the sacred
virgin and her son but one soul, one heart and one life, so that
this heavenly mother, living, lived not, but her son lived in her!
'Twas a mother the most loving and the most beloved that ever
could be, yea loving and beloved with a love incomparably more
eminent than that of all the orders of angels and men, as the
names of mother-only and only-son, are names passing all other
names in matter of love. And I say mother-only and only-son,
because all the other sons of men divide the acknowledgment
of their production between their father and mother; but
in this son, as all his human birth depended on his mother
alone, who alone contributed that which was requisite to the
virtue of the Holy Ghost for the conception of this heavenly
child, so to her alone all the love which sprang from that
production was due and rendered: wherefore this son and this
mother were united in a union by so much more excellent, as
320her name is excellent in love above all other names. For which
of all the seraphim can say to our Saviour: Thou art my true
son, and I love thee as my true son? And to which of all his
creatures did our Saviour ever say: Thou art my true mother,
and as my true mother I love thee: thou art my true mother,
entirely mine, and I am thy true son wholly thine? If then a
loving servant durst say, and did say, that he had no other life
than his master's—Ah! how confidently and fervently might
this mother exclaim: I have no life but the life of my son,
my life is wholly in his, and his wholly in mine; for it was no
longer union but unity of hearts between this mother and this son.

And if this mother lived her son's life, she also died her
son's death. The phoenix, as report goes, grown very aged,
gathers together on the top of a mountain a quantity of
aromatical wood, upon which, as upon its bed of honour, it goes
to end its days: for when the sun, being at its highest, pours
out its hottest beams, this sole bird, to contribute an increase of
activity to the ardour of the sun, ceases not to beat with its
wings upon its bed, till it has made it take fire, and burning
with it is consumed, and dies in those odoriferous flames. In
like manner, Theotimus, the virgin-mother, having collected in
her spirit all the most beloved mysteries of the life and death of
her son by a most lively and continual memory of them, and
withal, ever receiving directly the most ardent inspirations
which her child, the sun of justice, has cast upon human
beings in the highest noon of his charity; and besides, making
on her part also, a perpetual movement of contemplation, at
length the sacred fire of this divine love consumed her entirely
as a holocaust of sweetness, so that she died thereof, the soul
being wholly ravished and transported into the arms of the
dilection of her son. O, death, amorously life-giving! O,
love, vitally death-giving!

Several sacred lovers were present at the death of the
Saviour, amongst whom those who had the most love had the
most sorrow; for love was then all steeped in sorrow, and sorrow
in love; and all they who for their Saviour were impassioned
with love were in love with his passion and sorrow. But the
321sweet Mother, who loved more than all, was more than all
transfixed with the sword of sorrow. The sorrow of the Son at
that time was a piercing sword, which passed through the heart of
the Mother, because that Mother's heart was glued, joined and
united to her Son, with so perfect a union that nothing could
wound the one without inflicting a lively torture upon the
other. Now this maternal bosom, being thus wounded with
love, not only did not seek a cure for its wound, but loved her
wound more than all cure, dearly keeping the shafts of sorrow
she had received, on account of the love which had shot them
into her heart, and continually desiring to die of them, since her
Son died of them, who, as say all the Holy Scriptures and all
Doctors, died amidst the flames of his charity, a perfect holocaust
for all the sins of the world.